Wish You Were Here
by Javanyet
Summary: When is an empty room not an empty room? When it's full of someone else. The new room at Mike's house means different things to different people. Well maybe not so different. One slightly sweet shot.


It hadn't been easy persuading Davy, Peter, Mike, and Micky (and especially Bob) that flying three thousand miles to lay down some final tracks and mix the last two album cuts was worth the trip, not to mention the expense. Colgems Records ended up footing the bill after Chip persuaded the PTB that the more relaxed environment and more recently specialized equipment in his friend's new studio would do better justice to the couple of string-heavy songs that still awaited the final mix-down. At first only Mike was up for it, having heard some of the masters Chip's buddy had sent to L.A., but in short order the other three were packed and on the plane. They were in the middle of taping the next two episodes of The Monkees, but Bob figured taking a couple of days to put some polish on the new album - the first Monkees-produced - could be a good investment. But he made sure Bonnie booked the tickets for flights arriving Saturday morning and coming back early Monday, so they wouldn't lose too much valuable rehearsal and shooting time.

"Why do I still have to book the plane tickets, Bob," Bonnie had protested, "I'm a producer, now, not your assistant."

"That's _associate_ producer, and because you always manage to get a better deal than Monica."

* * *

_Sunday, 321 W 44th Street, NY, 1:45am_

Chip shut off the speakers and asked, "So, guys, worth the trip? Worth the _work?_" He was as bloodshot and fried as everyone else, but wound up with enthusiasm for the sound they'd just created. The others, exhausted as they were, had to agree.

"Man, I don't know what demons possess this place, but I never heard strings mixed like that before. The banjos blew my mind!" Micky announced.

"Yeah, it was a great idea to multi-track Lulu and me," added Peter. While not under contract, Lulu had been readily invited to contribute some "guest tracks" for this and future recordings. She'd recorded them a month ago before returning to New York. "Man, if we'd known we were going to do this she could have come in and done 'em live." It had been considered, but Lulu was too busy at the club during the few days the guys were in town, with barely time to come by and listen to some of the preliminary mixes.

"Hey," Peter jumped up from the sofa, one of a number of comfortable furnishings in the recording area, and suggested, "why don't we re-do the whole album here? The sound is just too good to pass up!"

The others, Chip included, nailed him with death-ray glares.

"If we didn't know you're not in your right mind right now, we'd have to truss you up and drop you in the river, mate," Davy warned.

Peter raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, maybe the next one."

"Now, who's up for a beer? There's a great place up the street, open 'til three." invited Chip's buddy and studio proprietor Chris.

"You must be high already," Mike told him. "I'm goin' back to the hotel. We have a ten a.m. flight and I don't sleep so good on a plane, and we get back to L.A. in time to start the whole damn day over again. Which is exactly what Bob has planned. So no, thanks. I'm done."

Chris and Chip looked at the others. "How about it?" Chip coaxed. "Just a couple beers to celebrate. Just 'cause Nesmith's a sissy doesn't mean we all are."

"Oh he's not a _sissy,"_ Micky informed them all, "he just wants to get back and call the little woman, right Mike?"

Mike held out his hand. "Right here, man."

"What?" came the puzzled reply.

"Gonna cost ya twenty to keep that 'little woman' crack just between _us."_

Micky made a show of digging in his pockets, then cast a panicked look around at his friends. "Help me out, guys, the life you save'll definitely be my own!"

Not quite getting the joke, Chris told Mike, "Look, there's a phone back there in the booth. Call L.A. if you want, no problem."

"Yeah, he can write it off at tax time," Chip grinned.

"Well, okay man, thanks. But I mean it, I'm gonna need to get some sleep tonight."

Micky nodded. "He's right. If he doesn't get at least three hours between manic fits, he's _very_ cranky."

"Right, how can you tell?" Davy snickered.

"Ha, ha, ha," Mike trailed over his shoulder as he went to the phone, leaving the door to the mixing booth open.

* * *

_9032 Crescent Drive, Los Angeles, 10:55 pm_

Bonnie was working on the last set of loose budget numbers for the next three episodes. "Loose" because she knew that while Genie could be counted on to plan and design creatively within reasonable numbers, the Set and Props guys were in love with the words "zany" and "weird". Ever since TV Guide had described the Monkees with those adjectives, among others like "psychedelic", "hip" and "avant-garde", Props had decided that this was their golden opportunity: a cosmic imperative to Never Stop Hunting for the Best Stuff Around. "Where's the prop list, Bonnie?" was now replaced by "Look what I found!" As for Sets, The Adjectives were an invitation to channel a combination of the German Expressionist film movement, and a style that Bonnie liked to call "Disneyland on Acid". Only The Pad set was a sure budget bet, if she could completely break the writers from their party and dream sequence addictions. Even that was a half-hearted effort on her part; Bonnie had a soft spot for the party scenes because they really let the guys cut loose with the improv.

"If I had a hammer..." she sang to herself as she wrote up the last of the totals, "I'd nail down every doll-oll-ar..."

When the phone rang, she fumbled for it with one hand as she closed the budget binder with the other.

"Yo Nes, whassapening."

_"Oh the usual... wine, women, song..."_

"I'm thinking flat Coke, hippie engineers, and remixes."

_"My God, Davy warned me you'd send spies but I wouldn't listen. And you? Wild parties, draining my wine cellar, cavorting with naked men..."_

"Only half naked."

_"Which half, if you don't mind my asking?"_

_"_The _good_ half."

_"Ba-dum-bum."_

"Thanks, I know it ain't easy to earn a Nesmith rim-shot at this hour. So how'd the final mix-down go?"

_"Rim-shot well earned, Morris. And you'll hear the masters soon enough, but I'm telling ya this place is outtasight. It's small and relaxed, and when we did the new tracks the groove just descended. Pete wants to see if we can do the next whole project out here."_

"You may not have to, Lulu says word on the street is that Chip's friend and his business partner are gonna open another studio here in L.A. If Colgems likes what they hear they're not gonna care if you record it in the bus station men's room. Lulu also said the first mixes sounded fantastic. The banjo tracks of course."

_"Of course. Look baby, I gotta go, we're finally done and Chip and Chris are dragging us out for a few beers."_

The next voice Bonnie heard came from a distance, amplified for her benefit, its source unmistakable.

_"HEY MIKE, GET A MOVE ON, THE BROADS WE ORDERED ARE HERE AND THEY CHARGE BY THE HOUR."_

"Cute. Tell Dolenz I owe him one."

_"Actually you owe him __two__. I'll explain when we get back. Hey, Mick, leggo the phone, man!"_

There were brief sounds of a struggle, then she heard Micky, obviously fighting to retain control of the phone.

_"Do me a favor, Bon-bon, can you advance me twenty bucks on my pay, just write the check out to Mike okay?"_

Then Mike's voice came back, but directed elsewhere: _"Now it's forty, you waited too long!"_

"What the hell are you mental cases _up_ to?"

_"About five-three to six-two, last I checked."_

"Ba-dum-bum to you too. Look, when you get back tomorrow I'll be gone, Bob and me are leaving early to go up to Frisco to scout some locations and he set up a meet at the Fillmore about a Monkees one nighter maybe next month. Can you believe it... he sent some tapes of your new stuff to Bill Graham, and the Graham said 'these are the MONKEES?' No offense intended. And don't tell the guys yet, they'll wanna party all night just to get in shape for it. Anyway, I'll be back late so don't bother waiting up."

_"Okay, look, if I don't hang up my left arm is gonna get pulled outta its socket and the rest of me will be outta work. See you when I get back. T'amomamadillo."_

As always, she smiled at the way he combined "I love you" in Spanish with his pet name for her.

"Backatyanes." Not as clever, but it got the point across.

Bonnie tidied up her desk and went to the bedroom to change and crash. As often was the case on the rare occasions when Nes was away, she found the big bed a little _too_ big (and empty) to sleep in on her own, so she dragged his pillow off the bed and went back to Morris Central, where she crawled into the smaller, sumptuously decorated bed and curled up with Nes's pillow. The room he'd built for her was too dark to bathe in the liquid light that filled it in the daytime but the faint ghost of Ivory soap, together with the feeling of how much love had gone into everything surrounding her at that moment, wove a magic spell that never failed to make her feel like she had him right there with her.

"Night, 'Nes," she whispered to the dark, and soon drifted off.

* * *

_ 9032 Crescent Drive, Los Angeles, a__bout 27 hours later_

Bonnie waved to Bob after she'd unlocked the door, so he'd be able to drive off with a clear conscience. He never left before she was "safely inside" or close to it. Never mind that it would take a hatchet-wielding maniac a fifteen minute hike straight uphill to conceal himself in the bushes near the porch. Bob took no chances.

"Don't take it personally, babe, but if someone _did_ get you, it'd cost me fortune to put an ad in the trades for a replacement, and forever to break her in." Whatta guy.

She took off her shoes and padded upstairs, able to wash up quietly and make it to the bedroom without turning on the lights. She dumped her clothes on the floor by the bureau, too tired to put them away and not caring that she'd hear all about it from Mike "I'm not the maid" Nesmith the next day. BEFORE coffee. But when she crept to the bed, it only took her a minute to discover it was empty and untouched. Hmm. _Guess he's crashing at Pete's or Chip's after re-re-re-listening to the album masters._ She pulled his pillow from under the fur spread and trudged to Morris Central, where she'd feel less not-with-Nes.

She found only the beads hanging in the doorway, funny, she could have sworn she'd left the door closed this morning. Her eyes had fully adjusted to the dark, so she slipped through the door and went to the bed without turning on the light. What she saw stopped her in her tracks... and made her smile so hard her face hurt.

There, sprawled in what he called her "Magic Mirrored Hippie Bed", was Nes. Lying on his side, facing the walls that were full of her books and records, photographs and knick-knacks, long arms wrapped around her pillow, which she hadn't noticed was missing from the other bed. She knew it smelled of the sandalwood fragrance she wore, because he often teased her, "smells like I'm bedding down in a Hindu whorehouse." He also was facing the sign, dimly backlit by the moon beyond, that told them what, and who, this place was about, even if it came slightly differently to each of them.

How long Bonnie stood there, she didn't know, but finally she crawled in beside him, and poked him gently in the back.

"Hey. Shove over, Mamadillo's home."

He rolled over and reached for her. "Hey. Don't mind, I've just been baskin' awhile," he explained in a sleepy drawl.

She snuggled into his arms. "Basking?"

"Baskin' in the _Morris,_ Morris. Till you got back fer real." A moment went by before he asked, "And what brings _you_ here?"

She thought about telling him why being here made it easier to sleep alone because whenever she was in this room, so much of him was here with her. But she knew he'd figured that out already, from his own perspective, so she didn't.

"Some cowboy stole my pillow."

"I ain't no damn..."

"I know, I know. 'night, Nes."

She gave him a kiss, which he returned twice.

"'night, Morris... welcome home."


End file.
